Drug abuse in Lorain County

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine Drug Abuse Community Forum on April 21 at LCCC

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine along with many leaders throughout Lorain County including Lorain Police Chief Cel Rivera had conversations about Drug Abuse Community Forum on April 21 at Lorain County Community College in Elyria.

DeWine said. “There are conversations going on. I can’t solve this problem. We can help. But ultimately lives are going to be saved at the local level. To bridge the gaps, we need agencies working together. It takes the churches, schools, business community. Everybody has got to be involved. It could be their child next.”

In a survey of county coroners, 897 deaths in 2013 in Ohio were attributed to heroin overdoses, DeWine said, including 31 in Lorain County, 195 in Cuyahoga County, two in Huron County, and six in Medina County.

 Judge Debra Boros said she sees addiction while working with adults at Lorain County Domestic Relations Court, and a lot more juveniles at Lorain County Juvenile Court are coming through our courts.

“I hope none of you have ever had the experience of watching a juvenile detox,” Boros said. “It’s horrible to witness.”

“Most parents are not educated enough to help a child detox at home, Boros said. The obstacles that prevent a juvenile from beating a drug habit are different from those of an adult, she said. They’re using in their homes and parents don’t know about it. We don’t have the detox facilities available for the treatment of juveniles.”

Lorain Police Chief Cel Rivera said that while heroin has been a relatively new phenomenon in suburban and rural areas, it always has been a problem in Lorain. Now it’s multi-generational, he said.

 Heroin addicts police dealt with in the 1970s returned to the drug beginning in 2005 and were overdosing, Rivera said.

 An epidemic about seven months ago resulted in a rash of overdose deaths because of Fentanyl added to the heroin, Rivera said.

“Everybody got together, finally arresting all of the culprits,” Rivera said. About 10 years ago, the drug enforcement unit gathered information for about 18 months to arrest key dealers, Rivera said. Now officers target open markets for illegal activity. Logged citizen complaints are reviewed in bi-weekly meetings, with officers accounting for how they handled those tips.

 Ohio State Senator Gayle Manning’s headed efforts to pass legislation for a pilot program allowing police officers to carry and administer Narcan, which reverses the effects of a heroin overdose, Lorain Police Department has saved 26 lives so far, Rivera said. The state legislature passed a measure to spread Narcan use to all police agencies in Ohio.

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